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For ‘lack of integrity’ the Morrison government scores an A+

Election diary No 8. Saturday, January 29 2022.

As one summers day oozes into the next and the heat on small bald feet diminishes, kids, prepare for the start of another school year, having learned that it isn’t as bad as they thought.

Having downed his last stubbie and Mum having prepared her last meal in unfamiliar surroundings, both give their thoughts to returning to work.

Unlike most years, this one is different. Mum and Dad and all those 18 and over will have to vote, some for the first time. And others like my wife and I will be doing so for the umpteenth time.

Some take it seriously. Others do so because they are expected to. Most vote for the same party every time. Too many, because they are dissatisfied with the system, don’t vote at all. And then some vote after giving serious consideration to why they are doing so.

With a likely May election, now is the time we all pay more attention to what our politicians are doing and saying. Given that the stakes are so high in this election, people may give their thoughts over to things like integrity now that the current media focuses somewhat on politicians’ behaviour.

When l say the stakes are high, I’m not kidding. This Government collectively is a bunch of the most corrupt, self-serving politicians who will further destroy our democracy if given the opportunity.

There is an abundance of evidence to support my claims. Even now, we have a repetitive TV commercial that claims emissions have come down by 15%, whereas The Guardian reports they have risen by 7%. It might just be me, but I’ll take The Guardian‘s word over the Government’s any day.

The pre-election period is when the Government thinks it’s perfectly alright to spend our taxpayer’s money on falsehoods that make them look good. The budget for this lying rises considerably before each election.

If you live on a hill, look out for the pork barrels

There is always the temptation to use taxpayers’ money in marginal seats in the pre-election period. No doubt, most will recall the Sports Rorts affair when in the lead-up to the 2019 election, the Government used the $100m community sports grants program to prop up many seats. Later a massive scandal broke when the Auditor General found the grants were not awarded consistent with assessed merit and were biased in favour of marginal electorates.

This was followed by the revelation that the Auditor General also had a problem with $660m allocated to 47 sites for commuter car parks. 77% were located in Coalition electorates. Headlines like; Sports rorts on steroids’: scathing report finds Coalition car park program not effective or merit-based followed.

With a significantly increased war chest of $15.9bn in unidentified spending for “decisions taken but not yet announced,” a whopping increase on the previous year’s December budget update figure of $1.5bn.

We must be vigilant and watch out for the Government’s pork barrelling attempts in marginal seats. It is difficult to see them trying to put one over on the electorate again, but it isn’t beyond them.

The money rolls in

Political donations begin to roll in during the pre-election period to back the winner and buy influence into the future.

The big story in the 2019 election was Clive Palmer’s $60m to fund his own campaign. There wasn’t a suggestion of illegality, and he failed to win a seat; however, there can be no doubt that his repetitious anti-Labor advertising made a considerable difference to the Coalition’s vote.

Yes, you’re correct. Grattan Institute analysis tells us that the parties’ top 5% of donors account for more than half of their declared donations. And guess who they might be.

We all know of the subsidies given to the gambling companies property, mining and construction companies that would be better spent elsewhere. No wonder their donations are so sizable.

Something urgently needs to be done about political donations and their disclosure. An excellent first step to squashing this grey corruption is making it more visible.

Real-time disclosure is a must. The Grattan Institute reports that:

“… we won’t find out where the money came from until February 2023 because donation disclosures are only published annually. And even then we will only get a partial picture because high declarations thresholds and big loopholes mean that the major parties generally declare less than 60% of their total private funding.”

Taxpayer-funded political advertising

Governments frequently significantly bolster taxpayer-funded advertising in the months before election campaigns.

The guidelines are supposed to restrict taxpayer-funded advertising for political purposes. However, the Grattan Institute examinations tell us:

“… that over the past five elections, federal governments have doubled their spending in the two-to-three months before an election, compared to the previous three months.”

With a budget in March, goodness knows what they will throw into their electioneering.

The analysis published in The Guardian suggests another 59 million dollars will be spent on advertising.

The “positive energy” campaign and advertisements about the Government securing more rapid antigen tests have already hit our screens. Both are full of inaccuracies, I suggest. Or just plain propaganda.

Government appointments galore, or is that galah?

The Grattan Institute reports that:

“Ministers are responsible for filling hundreds of positions on independent government boards and agencies. In the lead-up to an election, there seems to be a rush to fill these spots – even some of the ones that aren’t currently vacant.

Governments like to control who sits in powerful positions, even more so when these positions are prestigious or well-paid. A forthcoming Grattan Institute report will show that appointing “political mates” to these positions is becoming more common.”

There isn’t much to be done except to highlight the hypocrisy. These appointments of former politicians and staffers need to be forensically examined by the media and Labor. Hopefully, the press will provide background on those who get a position.

We dislike and resist change in the foolish assumption that we can permanently make us feel secure. Yet change is, in fact, part of the very fabric of our existence.

Looking at a way to boost integrity?

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese, in his address to the Press Club on Tuesday, January 25, placed great emphasis on the restoration of the dignity that once was the Australian parliament. Making things transparent that have been allowed to disappear will take more effort, and still more challenging will be the replacement of those who have made it all possible. It won’t be easy to suppress the influence of money and corruption after it has flourished carte blanche for a decade or more. But all of it must be done.

Elections allow all of us a chance to change things. They afford us the opportunity to right wrongs and start afresh.

In his speech, Albanese said:

“A country and a people as extraordinary as ours deserve a government to match. A government of competence and a government of integrity. A government that doesn’t get out of the way but helps to create the way.”

Hear hear, Albo. Hear hear.

My thought for the day

Just because we are governed by clowns doesn’t mean it is a laughing matter. The first duty of any government, if they don’t already have it, is the acquisition of integrity.

PS: When actions speak louder than words. Congratulations, Grace Tame.

 

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10 comments

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  1. GL

    If LNP promises were diarrhetic flying pigs we’d already be knee deep in malodorous faeces and would need canoes and heavy duty diving suits by polling day.

  2. wam

    Opinion, interspersed with a few truths, makes a good read this morning, lord. Integrity is vital but the more important word for our pollies is ‘honesty’. Truth may be transient and tangled with beliefs but being honest is the quality that has been most devalued by the rabbott’s and morrison’s reliance on the secrecy of christian directives, opus dei and hillsong respectively. Nevertheless integrity is a real worry, not only here but in the septic government system. https://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/acquisition_integrity/index.html “The big story in the 2019 election was Clive Palmer’s $60m to fund his own campaign. There wasn’t a suggestion of illegality, and he failed to win a seat; however, there can be no doubt that his repetitious anti-Labor advertising made a considerable difference to the Coalition’s vote.”
    Not bad, lord, but a bigger story was the caravan which saw AEC cash increase from $6m to $9m and also made a considerable difference to labor’s vote. ps
    Palmer, still has front page ads in our paper. He has access to more cash than labor, not up at the LNP level who have the luxury of using blatant electioneering in government advertising.
    Honesty is missing from all advertising. Palmer and scummo are shockers leaving albo plenty of scope. Time for labor to move???

  3. Keitha Granville

    Labor MUST resist the temptation to use the same tactics of lying and bashing the LNP. Anyone with a brain in the electorate already knows the LNP is a lying nasty party. Labor must simply put forward what it plans to do about integrity, honesty and respect. It must propose policies that support those ethics. The fence sitters need to know why Labor is the only hope.

  4. Phil Pryor

    “Lower” says the Moir cartoon, and low indeed is the Morrison menagerie of misfit merderies, lower than a bug’s bollocks, lower than a worm’s willy, lower even than a subterranean microbe’s mort’s dock. Morrison is now “ANKLES”, so far below an arsehole…

  5. GL

    Keitha,

    I agree with you that Labor does not have to sink to the same level of using the dirty tactics of the LNP. It won’t, however, stop Scummo and Crony Co. Inc. from getting back in again because of the unwashed masses who are continually fed like mushrooms by Rupert/Nine/Fairfax/Stokes/Palmer and the tiresome scare campaigns from the LNP.

    Call me a pessimist but my faith in the unwashed and apathetic masses doing what is desperately needed is pretty low.

  6. Terence Mills

    I see that the new Chinese ambassador to Australia has thrown Pudley Dutton’s fear and terror election manifesto into confusion. Dutton has been working away at scaring the Australian electorate with impending threats to our security mainly from China but also from Russia. Periodically he makes media statements – normally on 2GB and SKY – to keep the belligerence going.

    Then in comes a new Chinese ambassador by the name of Xiao Qian who has the temerity to suggest that we both seek to normalise the relationship. He said that :

    ” ties between Canberra and Beijing were at a “critical juncture, facing many difficulties and challenges as well as enormous opportunities and potential”.

    “I look forward to working with the Australian government … to enhance mutual understanding and trust, eliminate misunderstanding and suspicion, promote mutually beneficial exchanges and cooperation in all areas between the two sides, and jointly push the China-Australia relations back to the right track.”

    Clearly the ambassador doesn’t realize that normalising our relationship is off the cards with Dutton – who oddly is now speaking publicly for the prime minister as well as the foreign affairs minister together with Home Affairs and border security in addition to his daytime job as minister for war- at least until after the election.

    Dutton was quick off the mark to point to China’s human rights record – this coming from a man who has used indefinite detention of refugees and asylum seekers as an electioneering tool for the last three elections. Dutton won’t have a bar of normalising our relationship with China as he wants to use the ongoing difficulties to attack any policy move that Labor might make in that direction.

    Informed commentators (Hewson, Keating, Rudd and any number of former diplomats and economists) have been saying for some time that it is in Australia’s national strategic and economic interests to work towards resetting our relationship with Beijing. Yet when an olive branch is proffered by the Chinese we instantly spurn it apparently for short term political point scoring.

    Typically our so called prime minister has been silent on the subject !

  7. wam

    Keitha the point is the anyone with a brain, who is not a fixed voter, are able to make a discerned choice. It is the below average voters that make up those influenced by the action slogans of scummo that need to be reached. Albo et al need to use the media to counter scummo. The morning shows will fall over themselves chasing ratings with a controversy and there are plenty of opportunities to stir scummo’s pot??? What does albo give “we followed through on our commitment to infrastructure’ some journo will show the lie to that. Notice the ukrainian president is asking the west to stop the political bullshit.

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